POLAND: Poland's Prime Minister Mr Marek Belka lost a parliamentary vote of confidence last night in a setback for the ruling left's effort to stave off early elections.
Mr Belka who took over as prime minister after Mr Leszek Miller stood down on May 2nd, tried to begin a complicated ratification process yesterday with a plea for a 12-month mandate to turn around Poland's finances.
"The government needs and is asking for one year to carry out its tasks," said Mr Belka before the vote, adding that the country needed continued reforms to take advantage of its new EU membership.
"Poland cannot back out from fiscal reforms. If we do not do them now, then in future years there will appear a real threat to the financing of most important programmes," he said.
The current political crisis in Poland came after 33 deputies departed the ruling Democratic Left (SLD), which had been dragged down by scandals to just 5 per cent support, to form their own party, Polish Social Democracy (SDPL).
The lower house of parliament voted 262-188 against Mr Belka. There were no abstentions, but 10 MPs were absent.
The failed confidence vote will allow the opposition to present an alternative candidate for prime minister, with little chance of success.
This would followed by a second confidence vote with a lower majority required, a vote Mr Belka stands a greater chance of winning.
Parliament has two weeks to select and vote on a candidate.
Mr Belka (52), a former economics professor and one-time finance minister, is respected at home and seen abroad as a competent pair of hands to push through painful austerity measures.
Some 61 per cent of Poles support him as prime minister and one in two thinks he will be a better leader than Mr Miller, according to a poll released by the Pentor agency yesterday.
Mr Belka returned to Poland last month from Iraq where he worked as the director of economic policy for the US-led authority.
Yesterday he drew applause from deputies in the parliament for saying that Poland hopes to reduce "significantly" troop numbers in Iraq in early 2005.